Please join us at the brewery September 24th from 4:30 – 9 pm for a special bottle release party featuring our newest beer which we’ve left nameless and style-less and open to the interpretation of the thinking man yobs. Local beer writer and enthusiast Abe Goldman-Armstrong will be in charge of the record player all night playing classic punk records before this beer gets lost in the supermarket.

In addition to this latest release we will be pouring a single cask firkin of our Four with an addition of juiced rhubarb grown by our good friend Ron Boesl. Look for other special taps and snacks as well. Also available will be a limited run of new t-shirts featuring the bottle artwork:

Pats on backs and hearty handshakes are in order for Alex and the crew at Upright Brewing. Last weekend, hot on the heels of Upright’s one year anniversary party, Alex found himself on a plane headed to the World Beer Cup 2010 in the windy city of Chicago where he had entered six of his wonderful brews. We are happy to announce that he won a bronze medal for his German-style sour ale, Gose. Congratulations Alex and Gerritt!

How many people can say they eat for a living? Here at Portland Farmers Market, we have the good fortune of doing just that during product jury time. Every year as part of the application process, a select group of potential processed food vendors are invited to bring in their goods for evaluation by a panel of PFM staff and Market Advisory Council members. Products are assessed based on a number of factors. Although passing the taste test is the most important criteria, the jury panel also takes a hard look at ingredient sourcing, aesthetics and packaging, balance of products in the marketplace, and alignment with PFM’s mission

This season, we received a record number of extraordinary applicants. The jury had the honor of sampling 20 entries representing everything from baked goods to wine to chutney. After several hours of eating and drinking, the jury panel was faced with some very tough decisions. Even though we had to decline many qualified vendors based on space availability and market needs, the sheer diversity of entries tells us this will be a banner year for artisan foods in Portland.

Come join us for the release of our newest beer on Friday the 26th – an Oyster Stout! We’ll have one of only a few kegs on draft as well as bottles of this full-bodied and creamy stout available to take home. It was brewed in collaboration with fellow oyster lover Jason McAdam of upcoming Alchemy Brewing. We made the beer using over ten gallons of oyster juice fresh from the Oregon coast and eight dozen DeCourcy oysters from B.C. For the release raw oysters will be available along with some free snacks as well between 4:30 and 9 pm which also marks the beginning of our new Friday tasting room hours. Hope to catch you there!

Upright Brewing is hosting its first bottle release party Sunday January 10th. We’ll have two special beers available for the first time and will be debuting some new and exciting draft beer as well. The most anticipated release is actually our very first batch brewed last March called Billy the Mountain. It’s a traditional English-style Old Ale that has been barrel-aged with a special yeast strain and cellared here in the Leftbank basement for over four months in the bottle. The Billy is ready to enjoy now but will mature gracefully for at least another year as the brettanomyces yeast continues to unfold new aromas in this very “live” beer. Our second release is simply titled Gose, a German-style wheat beer made with coriander and salt. Its history dates back to the early 18th century and is enjoying a bit of a revival here in Portland between ourselves and Cascade Brewing.

Come down and join us from one to six that afternoon. We’ll have special charcuterie out tailored to the beers along with bread and other small snacks. To keep up on other brewery happenings be sure to follow us on facebook and check out the brewery blog.

Upright Brewing Company is happy to to announce the first weekend of our brewery tasting room! We plan to have the doors open every Saturday and Sunday between noon and five for you to come down and enjoy our beers at the source. You can expect the following six available this weekend to try on draft:

Upright Brewing has three special beers for summer in the works – a traditional Belgian-style wit, a hop-less gruit and a unique farmhouse saison, all of which use herbs and/or spices.

The wit uses a traditional recipe including wheat, oats, bitter orange peel and coriander, fermented with a distinct strain of yeast. We anticipate the beer to finish lively on the palate and have a classic cloudy appearance.

The gruit was made with a blend of lemongrass, bitter orange peel, hyssop and sichuan peppercorns along with some spelt as part of the grist. It’s an invigorating beer that you can expect to see at the North American Organic Beer Festival at the end of June.

The farmhouse saison was brewed today using fresh yarrow leaves and flowers picked from the brewers garden (pictured) and dried calendula flowers. The fermentation is already off to a great start and giving off great aromas from the open top tank. We’re really excited about this one!

The wit and saison are still without names so if you’ve got any ideas please comment. Extra consideration will go to names with any sort of Mingus, Zappa or Ween connection.

We’re making beer! Upright Brewing Company is in full production mode right now and the photo attached to this post shows the very early stage of fermentation for batch number six as viewed from above our open top vessels. Brewer Gerritt Ill and myself began by filling thirteen used pinot noir oak barrels with two different long term projects before starting our year round brews. Look for Upright’s first farmhouse style ale to be available in most beer-centric establishments within a couple weeks and catch us at this year’s North American Organic Brewers Festival the last weekend of June where we will be pouring a hop-less spelt beer made with several different herbs and spices. We should also have our weekend tasting room open by that time as well and are looking forward to meeting more of Portland’s beer lovers in person.

Upright Brewing had the pleasure of receiving the bulk of it’s equipment yesterday, squeezing it downstairs and into the brewery in what was a fun and exciting day. Within the next few weeks we hope to finish the installation of the vessels and prepare the brewery for production, a bit later than expected but as a friend commented not long ago, “a couple months behind schedule is like being six months ahead”. We can’t wait to fire up over here and are looking forward to sharing a brew or two with visitors once we’re underway.